Days until the 2028 presidential election

Election Day is Tuesday, November 7, 2028 — the next time the presidency itself is on the ballot.

The calendar after the vote

Election night is the start of a fixed sequence, not the end of one. Each step below is set by law rather than by custom:

The roughly eleven-week stretch between the vote and the inauguration is the transition period. It is already far shorter than it used to be: before 1933 the gap ran to March 4.

Why the president is chosen by electors, not by the national total

The Constitution assigns each state a number of electors equal to its total representation in Congress — its House seats plus its two senators — with three electors for the District of Columbia under the Twenty-Third Amendment. There are 538 in all, and a majority, 270, is required to win. Nearly every state awards all of its electors to the statewide winner; Maine and Nebraska are the exceptions, splitting some electors by congressional district.

This is why a candidate can lead the national popular vote and still lose, and why campaigns concentrate on a handful of close states rather than on running up totals in states they are already certain to win or lose.

Who can run

The constitutional requirements are short: a natural born citizen, at least 35 years old, and a resident within the United States for at least 14 years. The one relevant additional limit is the Twenty-Second Amendment, which bars anyone already elected president twice from being elected again — which is why the incumbent is not eligible in 2028.